It turns out that, spiritually, I am Berkeleyan

We received our annual taste reports from Spotify (“Your 2023 Wrapped”). My listening habits were likened to those of the people of Berkeley, California; Karin’s, to those of the residents of Provo, Utah.

So, what do they listen to at BYU? Broadway tunes and Disney.

What do the liberal kids at UC Berkeley listen to? Evidently, Joe Hisaishi’s cartoon music. (Not so different from the Mormons, then.)

Other musicians who got lots of Spotify play from me in 2023: Boards of Canada, Stelvio Cipriani, Vangelis, Silver Convention, and Aphex Twin. And, too late to make the list, Enigma. I should note that it’s Samuel who asks to listen to much of this. “I want to hear Mix-Mad by Enigma,” he says (the album is MCXMD a.D.).

Vexillologists

I missed Flag Day – June 14 is the date – and, anyway, I’m not an admirer of “Old Glory.” But like Stephen when he was a child, and Samuel now, I do appreciate a good flag, and a bad one.

These are some noteworthy flags you may not have seen:

(1) The flag of Åland (an autonomous region of Finland). Good.

(2) The flag of the International Federation of Vexillological Associations. Good.

(3) Indeed, vexillological groups generally create good flags.

(4) The North American Vexillological Association, in keeping with its mission, has an elegant flag (and a hideous official seal – it’s a specialist group, for sure). The organization designs a different host-city-themed flag for each annual meeting. Some highlights: Salem, Mass. (1979); Indianapolis (2004); Charleston, S.C. (2009); Salt Lake City (2013); New Orleans (2014); Ottawa (2015); San Antonio (2019); and Zoom (2021).

(5) I went down this rabbit trail because I was reading about Pocatello, which has a very good flag but used to have an absolutely terrible one, rightly excoriated by vexillologists.

(4) Milwaukee’s flag is notorious enough to have its own Wikipedia page, but I kinda like it. The golden wheat stem and golden, vertically-written founding date on opposing edges of the flag confer a nice symmetry, and the whole is reminiscent of artwork for the Asociación Uruguaya de Fútbol. As for the other stuff on the flag, well, busy ain’t always bad (cf. Pieter Bruegel the Elder).

(5) Simple ain’t always good. I don’t like Provo’s awful old flag.

I could go on and on. Most of my readers could, I suspect. What topic is easier to opine on than flags? So far as I know, the late philosopher Josh Parsons was no trained vexillologist, but that didn’t stop him from grading the world’s flags. I must constantly battle the urge to do the same.